After Effect
by Riza A
Summary: The second time Tsukiyomi is used on him, Sasuke finds that acting is harder, and faces tend to change. A descent into madness goes unchecked. [Sasuke, Itachi, Naruto. Not romantic][Warning for graphically depicted content.]


Tsukiyomi wasn't normally something that was used more than once. It practically destroyed an enemy's mind, plucked at their memories and stabbed at their souls, all while feeding them lies and truths that they could never again escape from. The emotional and mental breakdowns that resulted from Tsukiyomi weakened the victim to the point where even a child can easily dispatch them. That is, if they didn't die while still in the grasp of the genjutsu.

That was how Tsukiyomi was _meant_ to be used.

But then again, Uchiha Itachi had never been one to follow rules – even less, guidelines. It really wasn't all that surprising then that by the time Sasuke was twelve he had been pulled into the World of the Grasping Moon not once, but twice.

Sasuke did his best to keep up the cool façade that he had nurtured since the massacre. It wasn't so hard, really. Acting was just another thing to be conquered and fitted to his own needs. It got harder after that second visit, though. _Before_, all he had to worry about were the voices at night, floating around the room and through his mind, whispering evil things; terrible things; delightfully wonderful things.

All he had to worry about were the eyes that _sometimes_ stared at him from dark corners, shining red; weeping blood.

All he had to worry about were the hands that touched him whenever he wasn't looking - _how could he look for something that wasn't there? _- , whispering across his skin and leaving behind bloody trails that no one else could see.

And sometimes he would _see,_ and he would know that in the end, everything was just muscle and bones and blood.

_After,_ there was pain.

Not the kind of pain that burns, stings, makes you cry, and then goes away. Not the kind that heals and leaves behind scars that in time fade and become memories.

This pain didn't leave scars because it didn't actually slice Sasuke's skin, tear through his flesh, or sever his arteries. It creeped inside his mind, cutting tender slivers from his mentality, and knocking down his resistance.

It got harder to act, _after._

It got harder to act, because when you look at your best friend and see decaying flesh, empty eye-sockets, half rotted lips that exposed an eternal grin – when you look and see that, it's difficult not to give in to the voices and rip your eyes out of your skull.

Perhaps, then, you wouldn't have to see it.

* * *

"You are going to kill him, Sasuke? Itachi has been a bad older brother. He needs to be punished."

"Yes, Mother."

"He turned out to be such a naughty boy; it's too bad. You'll never be like that, right Sasuke?"

"No, Mother."

"Stop pestering the boy. He's got training to do. He won't become stronger just by sitting here, lazing around. Get to it, Sasuke."

"Yes, Father."

* * *

Sometimes, the voices have names.

Names like 'Father' and 'Mother'. Occasionally 'Brother'.

* * *

Sasuke thought that perhaps Sakura was a safety line. Even when Naruto _changed,_ became a grinning, decaying corpse, she still stayed shining and pretty and pure.

Until the day when he turned around when she called his name, and her throat was torn out. Blood was dribbling down from the gash onto her already red-stained clothing, soaking into the material and making it stick to her skinny body. One arm was broken, the bone sticking through the flesh at an awkward angle, glinting in the normal, noontime sun.

It was the ropes that he saw tied around her wrists, her ankles, which made him walk away.

It was better to pretend he hadn't heard her.

Besides, she'd be back to normal the next time he looked. What good would it do for him to cry?

* * *

"Isn't this how you want to see them?"

"Get out."

"I don't think you want me to."

"Get _out."_

"Wouldn't it feel good, Sasuke? Ripping through the kyuubi's flesh, leaving him to rot? Think of the _power_. What about the little pink girl? All you would need are a few ropes. She already trusts you enough to-"

"_Get the_ fuck _out of my head, Itachi!"_

"Whoever said I was in it, little brother?"

* * *

When he finally leaves, it's because he starts seeing _himself,_ now. But this self is tall and cold and has burning, pinwheel eyes. This Sasuke doesn't wear a carefully crafted mask of boredom and painstakingly pruned pain; he wears a face that is full of demonic glee and barely concealed madness.

He reached out, for a moment, when he saw himself ripping through Naruto with a blade that he had never seen before. Naruto just smiled, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, and asked him what was wrong.

Sakura tried to stop him.

"I love you," she said.

Loved him? Loved him. He turned around, and saw the other Sasuke, the cold and terrible Sasuke, running one of his hands along her side, a widely stretched grin across his face that made his stomach turn.

"Thank you," was all he could say in return, and then he walked away, taking the still maniacally smiling Sasuke with him.

* * *

Time has passed since the battle at the Valley of the End. Time has passed, he's sure of it. But he can't tell how much. Enough time for his hair to grow to a length where he automatically ties it up in the morning. Enough time for his hands to blister, and then bleed, and then callous as he learns his sword. Enough time so that when he looks in the mirror, it's Itachi's face staring out at him, instead of Sasuke's.

The voices still talk. Sometimes, now, they scream for him to come home.

But he can't remember where home is anymore.

* * *

The snake man was a surprisingly easy kill.

His arms didn't work, so he tore those off first. It was always better to clean things up, before you destroyed them. Sasuke had learned all he could. All that Orochimaru was willing, or able, to teach. He had endured the long fingered, _real,_ hands that had sometimes flitted over his body in the dark. But they were nothing like the ghost hands that still touched him, still left little designs in blood for only him to admire.

Kabuto ran into the room to see Sasuke's sword shoved down Orochimaru's throat, the sannin's eyes bulging, and then rolling back completely into his head. The silver haired ninja didn't have to wait long to follow his master into hell.

* * *

He thought he could avoid Naruto. After all, how hard was it to evade a loud-mouthed, blond-haired, dead-last boy?

Surprisingly difficult.

More time must have passed, because Naruto wasn't as short anymore. He wasn't as scrawny.

And there was a look in those dulled blue eyes that Sasuke didn't bother trying to place.

The fight was long, and bloody, and full of screams of inarticulate rage and hurt.

When Sasuke shoved his hand through Naruto's chest for a second time, it was on the left side. When Sasuke pulled out Naruto's heart, he wasn't sure if it was reality or fiction.

He decided it was fiction.

After all, why would he cry if it had been the real Naruto? Hadn't he already decided that Naruto meant nothing to him? Why would he have wailed like a child, cradling the limp, torn body to his chest?

Why would he have, finally, activated the Mangekyou Sharingan?

No. That couldn't have been the real Naruto. That couldn't have been his bloody, quivering heart that he had held in his hand. Because Naruto was still back in Konoha with Sakura and Kakashi, and he was _alive and breathing and he was never going to change._

So Sasuke stopped crying and deactivated the fictional Mangekyou Sharingan, walking away from the fake body of his best friend, and not stopping to look behind him as the crows came.

He thought, _perhaps a fictional Mangekyou works just like a real one?_, and went off to find his brother.

* * *

The newest voice was named 'Naruto'.

Naruto hovered beside him when he sat down to rest, looking at him with mournful eyes that were washed of color, and empty of ghostly tears. There was a gaping hole in his chest too, exposing shattered ribs and an empty space where a living, beating heart used to be. It was surprising when Sasuke heard Naruto speak, because his voice was cracked and aged and nothing at all like the _real_ Naruto.

"I didn't know that you would really turn out to be such a bastard, Sasuke." Naruto whispered, the words almost eaten up by the wind. But this wasn't really Naruto, Sasuke reminded himself again. Because real Naruto was _still_ back in Konoha, and fictional Naruto was still back in the clearing. So this would be voice Naruto.

He didn't need to talk to voices.

"Are you even going to talk to me, you son of a bitch? You just tore my fucking heart out, and now I'm stuck here with you," Naruto moved before him now, hitting him with ghostly fists that hurt more than solid flesh and blood fists ever could have. Sasuke didn't answer, just sat and stared at the red sky. "I looked for you for _five years_, Sasuke. Five years. I promised Sakura-chan I'd bring you back. And you fucking killed me…" Sasuke finally looked down as voice Naruto trailed off and looked at his faded, bleached out hands in horror.

"You aren't Naruto," Sasuke replied simply, before awkwardly getting to his feet and continuing forward.

The space where Naruto's heart used to be clenched, and the flickering image drifted after the broken Uchiha boy, mourning the past, and dreading the future.

* * *

"I am surprised that you have broken so completely." Itachi spoke softly, so softly that Sasuke had to strain to hear his words. His brother looked older now, more drawn and less lethal. There was a tired weight that seemed to have settled around his cloaked shoulders.

Sasuke couldn't have cared less.

"I'm going to kill you," Sasuke murmured, more from habit than from want. Voice Naruto was still hovering by his side, looking mournfully at the other Uchiha.

"Why did this all have to start?" Naruto voiced, and Sasuke stiffened at the sound.

"Shut _up_, Na-" he stopped himself just in time. Was he really about to address this voice, this fake ghost, as _Naruto?_ No. A simple mistake.

Sasuke activated the fake Mangekyou and in a moment, the battle began.

* * *

It had been so anti-climatic.

All that time, all that hatred, all that pain, all that loathing.

Itachi had used Tsukiyomi for a third time on him, but it seemed like the fake Mangekyou Sharingan worked just fine, and he was able to dispel the genjutsu. But for that moment that he was trapped in Tsukiyomi, he felt something inside him _change_ and sour and crack.

He ignored it, and kept fighting.

Itachi tired quickly after his failed genjutsu. A slip up here, a mistake there, and eventually Sasuke plunged his sword into Itachi's stomach. It went in smoothly, only scraping against Itachi's spine for a moment before sliding in to the hilt, covering Sasuke's hand with warm wetness. He watched, fascinated, as his brother's eyes widened, the tiny dots making up the Sharingan swirling violently before the red faded and was replaced by a murky black.

"You killed him, you know." Itachi said finally, as Sasuke ran his fingers over his brother's face, leaving streaks of blood along his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. There was a moment where he thought _Killed who, _but it faded away quickly. "Foolish little brother," a smile now, the once white teeth coated in the blood that was bubbling up his throat. "Did you actually think you could win, even if you killed me?" Sasuke watched Itachi's face with interest, ignoring how the hand still holding the sword in his belly was shaking, as Itachi's eyes started to dim. "I've pulled you into my Tsukiyomi three times, little brother," Itachi shuddered and smiled, digging his fingers into the flesh of Sasuke's arm, his grip bruising. He craned his neck forward, eyes bright and glazed and mad, he opened his mouth again, breath coming in pants, and whispered,

"You'll never be rid of me now."

Then the hand released him, sliding off of his arm and coming to dangle lifelessly at Itachi's side. Sasuke looked for a minute more, still wordlessly tracing his brothers face, his neck, his chest, before returning to his face, and, almost tenderly, plucking out Itachi's eyes.

It wouldn't do for this _fake_ to have them anymore.

"I'll find you brother, and I'll kill you." Sasuke whispered, carefully holding his brother's eyes in his hand, and walking away from the body that, without his support, dropped with a thud to the ground. The body that couldn't possibly have been Itachi. His brother wouldn't, couldn't, have been that easy to kill.

The last of the Uchiha clan walked forward into a world that was washed in red and dipped in black. He walked forward, ignoring the monsters that were reaching for him, ignoring the cold laughter of his brother.

He still had to kill him. He had to kill him, and then he would remember where home was. He would see Naruto, and Sakura.

And everything would be all right. Yes. Everything was going to be fine.

He cradled the eyes closer. After all, when he found the _real_ Itachi, he was going to have to give him back his eyes to make it a fair fight.

* * *

The ghost of Uzumaki Naruto watched Uchiha Sasuke walk away from his brother's dead, eye-less body, and mourned the small, innocent boy that still resided in Sasuke's soul, surrounded by monsters and with no way out.

* * *

**Authors note:**

If you can make sense of this, you are an amazing person. Please review and tell me what you think – I'd like to know if writing like this is something you'd want more of. Edited for some minor spelling mistakes on 11/11/2006

-**Oo**


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